There have been moments I thought of giving up

“Please be upstanding for the world’s most complicated Home of Video games contestant and Bake Off failure, Self Esteem!”

That is how Rebecca Lucy Taylor – aka celebrated pop singer Self Esteem – is launched to the stage at London’s Duke of York’s Theatre.

It is a usually irreverent remark, an instance of the dry wit she makes use of to sweeten the sincerity and anger of her music.

“You’ll be able to take piccies and movies,” the off-stage voice continues, “as a result of she wants all the assistance she will be able to get.”

That, too, is strictly tongue-in-cheek.

Three years in the past, Taylor launched her second album, Prioritise Pleasure, a body-shaking manifesto for feminine self-worth that bristled at society’s expectations whereas acknowledging her personal shortcomings (“Sexting you on the psychological well being speak appears counterproductive,” she noticed on Moody).

After 10 years in mid-ranking indie band Gradual Membership, the album propelled her into uncharted realms.

There have been journal covers, nominations for the Mercury Prize and Brit Awards, a starring function on stage in Cabaret, a assist slot with Adele and, sure, an look on Superstar Bake Off – the place, sadly, she burned her crumpets.

“The week that Prioritise Pleasure got here out, my complete life modified,” she displays.

“Not financially or when it comes to fame, however it’s like there was a knot in my abdomen that untied.

“Then everybody was like, ‘Proper, are you able to try this once more, please?'”

Taylor tore herself in two to make the follow-up, A Sophisticated Lady, which comes out on Friday.

After taking part in it dwell for the primary time within the West Finish on Wednesday, she describes the album’s gestation course of as “horrible”, “lonely”, and “painful”.

“It simply felt actually anxious to execute what was in my head,” she explains in a telephone interview the following morning.

“I used to be pondering so massive, however I nonetheless do not have entry to the sources I have to make it as massive as I needed.”

A part of the issue was a punishing, however self-imposed, time restrict.

“The music trade is like, ‘You have received 10 minutes, then you definately’re over and another person goes to take your home’,” she explains.

“So I felt like I had no selection [but to commit to another record] if I needed to construct on what I would accomplished.

“However as painful because it was and as darkish because it received, the second I am again on stage performing it, I am like, ‘Oh, that is why I adore it’.”

She hasn’t simply made a brand new album – she has additionally created a daring, jaw-dropping theatrical expertise to go along with it.

It is set in a sparse recreation of the group centre the place eight-year-old Becky from Rotherham discovered to faucet dance.

“You simply needed to sing / You did not know what that may carry,” remembers an older, extra cynical model of that baby – as she assesses her life on the age of 38.

“This actually is all there may be, and that is what you have to get comfy with.”

Because the present opens, 10 dancers line up on both facet of her, wearing austere outfits that recall The Handmaid’s Story.

Initially, their actions are stiff and restricted however, as Taylor describes suffocating relationships with emotionally-stunted males, they begin to thrash and jerk their our bodies.

“We begin in that world the place we’re shackled, after which we exorcise it,” Taylor explains.

“Over the course of the present, all of it unravels and everybody finally ends up being themselves as a substitute of conforming to those societal norms.”

A four-night theatre residency is an uncommon technique to launch an album. The viewers is unfamiliar with a lot of the songs, and no-one’s certain whether or not to soak up the efficiency attentively, or sing alongside and dance.

A number of occasions, laughter ripples via the theatre because the singer’s extra acerbic observations hit house. The next morning, she’s not fairly certain what to make of the response.

“Each time individuals chortle, my coronary heart sinks,” she says. “However then I am like, the lyrics are humorous, aren’t they?

“And I like altering the laughter into emotion. It appears like persons are laughing as a result of it is uncomfortable.”

Ultimately, the viewers members mirror the on-stage narrative. Shaking off their discomfort, they rise out of their seats and begin making an almighty racket.

The music turns into a soundtrack to solidarity – which, it transpires, was Taylor’s intention.

A Sophisticated Lady is likely to be as chopping and highly effective as its predecessor, however the melodies have been designed for stadiums.

“Do you keep in mind the Elbow tune One Day Like This?” she asks. “The one which goes, ‘Throw these curtains wii-iide‘?

“I went mad for that tune when it got here out and, actually, I performed it again and again within the studio and stated, ‘I need to do that’.”

“I used to be very impressed by attempting to make it onto World Cup montages. That is a style of music that I actually, actually take pleasure in.”

That is solely half the story, although. The album is all about capturing the complicated and contradictory impulses of a lady in her mid-30s.

Current single 69, for instance, is a thumping home monitor on which Taylor talks with withering candour about her intercourse life. Think about Madonna’s Justify My Love, if she was actually being trustworthy.

“It is an concept I had for ages, of itemizing intercourse positions and scoring them in order that there is not any gray space [for prospective partners],” the singer laughs.

“However there is a extra political aspect, which is that ladies nonetheless aren’t saying what they need within the bed room. And I am like, I am unable to bear this any extra. Please allow us to simply take pleasure in having intercourse.

“It isn’t precisely going to win an Ivor Novello Award for lyrics, however I feel it stands on the album with moments which can be extra emotional and deep.”

These moments embrace The Curse, a rousing ballad about utilizing alcohol to uninteresting her nervousness, which is probably the most effective tune Self Esteem’s ever written.

Her private favorite, nevertheless, is known as In Plain Sight. A collaboration with South African musician Moonchild Sanelly, it is a response to the criticism they’ve each acquired for talking their minds.

“The world is saying who I’m, however I believed I knew myself all these years,” says Sanelly in a semi-improvised rap.

“I shrink to maintain the peace, hoping I do not shake my objective.”

It is a feeling Taylor instantly recognised.

As pleasure constructed round Prioritise Pleasure in 2021, she began getting “nasty messages” on social media, which shook her up.

“I used to be actually shocked the primary time I received grief, as a result of no-one’s ever been that bothered about what I am doing,” she says.

“Individuals say you must ignore it, however in the event you went to a marriage and had a pleasant day and one individual known as you an [expletive], who would you go house eager about? It is simply human nature.”

Finally, the criticism took its toll.

“There have been moments the place I thought of giving up, which shocked me as a result of I have been this defiant, indignant factor for thus lengthy,” she says.

“However over the previous few years, particularly with the world being like it’s, I’ve undoubtedly had emotions of defending myself and shutting up.

“That is the saddest a part of the album, actually. However I discovered a manner via.

“And if I can, then I hope the remainder of the world can too, ?”

That realisation is the connecting tissue of A Sophisticated Lady.

Life isn’t straightforward, she says. No-one is ever actually glad. Relationships are laborious work. You’ll be able to’t please everybody. However that is OK. You are OK. Belief your intestine.

She sums it up on Focus Is Energy, held aloft by the sound of a gospel choir: “And now I see it clear with each passing of every yr / I should be right here.”

On stage in London, she sings these remaining traces a capella together with her dancers and backing singers, arms wrapped round one another in a show of feminine solidarity.

It is a cathartic second after the bruising strategy of placing the album collectively.

“There’s a lot pleasure in being a lady and simply being your self will be lovely,” she says. “You have simply received to discover a technique to do it.”

With that, she’s off to make tweaks for the present’s second evening. After that, she has to discover a technique to scale down the West Finish manufacturing for a UK tour.

“I am going to do what I can to make it proceed, however it’s an enormous danger as a result of there’s so little income from anything,” she says.

Finally, although, her ambition is undimmed.

“I need to make 20 albums, I need to do greater theatre reveals,” she says.

“In fact it might be helpful if I might ‘cross over’ as a result of every thing will get simpler once you’ve received extra sources.

“However final evening I used to be like, ‘Bloody hell, you probably did what you got down to do’. So I am good.”